to section 204, part 2, of the Interstate Commerce Act, reading from the bill, as it relates to florists?

Mr. KNEIPP. Yes, sir, exactly.

Mr. FUQUA. If I order flowers and have them sent to a hospital or some individual, they have to get a certificate to do this?

Mr. KNEIPP. Not necessarily. But the will provides that any employee with respect to whom the Interstate Commerce Commission, now Secretary of Transportation, has power to establish qualifications and maximum hours, the Secretary has the power to establish these qualifications if need is found therefore under 204-A3.

Mr. FUQUA. Let me make one point.

You would remove your objections then on page 2 of the bill if it was amended to only include certificated motor carriers? That would take care of the broad scope of it that you have been alluding to?

Mr. KNEIPP. I would think not, because that would then proceed to uncover drivers' helpers, loaders and mechanics employed here in the District of Columbia by these certificated carriers.

Mr. FUQUA. But it would remove the laundryman, florist, milkman and these others? It would remove them from any provisions of the Act, if we just limit it to the certificated motor carriers?

Mr. KNEIPP. Well, I would think perhaps the better way of writing it, Mr. Chairman, would be this: that with respect to common carriers by motor vehicle under 204-A1, I would assume Mr. Morrissette and his type of operation would come under that, if you expressed it: where the Secretary of Transportation has actually established hours of service not where he has the power to establish it, but where he has actually done so as in the case of the drivers alone, then with respect. to the certificated carriers under the section where the Secretary of Transportation has actually acted, perhaps there might not be any objection, although Mrs. Newman has one.

Mrs. NEWMAN. We would object.

Mr. KNEIPP. The advice here, as I indicated, is that merely because the Secretary had the power to do this-he has not done it, not exercised that power-but merely because he has the power it brings into operation this exemption. Now if it were very narrowly limited so that he had actually used that power and had set up these hours of service, there might be less objection as far as the long line carriers are concerned. But I defer to Mrs. Newman on that because apparently she does have an objection.

Mr. FUQUA. Getting back to Mrs. Newman, under this 12,400 employees, how many do we actually have that are covered by certificated motor carriers?

Mrs. NEWMAN. We do not have that figure. The census figures that we use do not indicate which onces are certificated.

Mr. FUQUA. 12,400 is an inadequate figure also, the 3,968,000 is inadequate, because you do not have the figures.

Mrs. NEWMAN. Actually, there will be figures from the 1970 Census pretty soon that will bring us up to date, but this $3,968,000 is prob ably underestimating the mount because that is based on these 12,400 employees earning $1.60 an hour and, as you see, the prevailing wage rates were higher than that.

Mr. FUQUA. Yes, ma'am.

Mrs. NEWMAN. So that very likely this figure is much lower than it will actually turn out to be.

Mr. FUQUA. I also find that the 12,400 figure is a very inflated figure because a lot of people included in that are not covered. We are not talking about them in this.

Mrs. NEWMAN. But they would be covered by this bill.

Mr. FUQUA. If we amend it the way we are talking about by only including the certificated motor carriers?

Mrs. NEWMAN. We are talking, of course, here in our statement about the bill as it was presented.

Mr. FUQUA. Yes, but we were primarily aiming at certificated carriers.

Mrs. NEWMAN. We would still be opposed in the Minimum Wage Board because these are people living in the District of Columbia. They should be earning a wage that makes it possible for them to live decently in the District of Columbia, which is one of the highest cost cities to live in. I think the Congress recognized that-for instance, this Congress did-when it raised its own salaries appreciably, and I think justifiably. It is an awareness that the Congress has shown that living in the District of Columbia is a very expensive proposition, and I think that a minimum wage set by that Congress for the people in the District of Columbia should have the result of making it possible for people who work in the District of Columbia to earn a decent living. We want to motivate people to work. We don't want people on welfare. Welfare is a very expensive business for a community. We want people to work. You have to motivate them by paying them decent wages, and overtime compensation I think, as Mr. Turner pointed out, has for a number of years now been considered to be one way of deterring overtime for one thing, and particularly now with unemployment figures going up maybe you want to even raise the overtime premium so that you could spread the employment by making overtime premiums a real deterrent to overtime work.

These are many factors which the Congress might want to consider when it is considering such things as overtime and minimum wage in the laws that it passes.

Mr. FUQUA. Mrs. Newman, you mentioned that it was no accidental oversight that this language was left out of the bill. Do you have any proof that you could support that statement with?

Mrs. NEWMAN. I think any time a Congress lifts specifically exemptions it obviously has considered which groups of employees it wants to exempt.

Mr. FUQUA. Were there any statements made in the report or in the colloquy on the Floor that we are going to leave out certificated motor carriers because we want them covered, or any words to that effect?

Mrs. NEWMAN. Our Executive Director, Mr. Seideman, tells me that we do have some statements in the history of the enactment of the 1966 amendments which would corroborate our belief that this was not an oversight. We will be very glad to provde it to you.

Mr. KNEIPP. May I expand on that, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. FUQUA. Yes, sir.

Mr. KNEIPP. I think a statement was made, and I believe by Mr. Broyhill in explaining the bill on the Floor, that it was intended to be broadened to cover all workers in the District of Columbia, and then then the House Report, Report No. 552, on H.R. 8126 of this commit

tee, includes on page 2 a list of the coverage of H.R. 8126 by industry and down toward the middle of this rather long list is Transportation, Communication, Utilities 23,977 persons, so apparently it was in the contemplation of the Congress that the Minimum Wage Bill was going to be broad enough to cover people in this area.

Mr. FUQUA. Mr. Garber, you participated in the drafting and the work on this bill. Do you recall any specific exemption or exclusion for certificated motor carriers?

Mr. GARBER. My recollection is that during the executive committee sessions the question was asked of the staff whether or not the certificated interstate motor carriers were exempt under existing law. We checked with the Interstate Commerce Commission. They said, yes, they are exempt from coverage by the terms of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. That information was given to the Members of the committee, and on the basis of that there was no mention whatsoever of this particular group of carriers. If you read the two laws as they stand now, there is nothing in the District of Columbia Act that says that they are not exempt.

There is nothing that says that they should be exempt. The two laws can be interpreted as supplementing each other without one in derogation of the other. The interpretation which is used by the agency is that because there are specific exemptions elsewhere, therefore it was intended not to exempt the interstate carriers.

Mr. FUQUA. Thank you. Mr. Nelsen?

Mr. NELSEN. I have only this observation to make: that I believe that the intent of the legislation was to deal not in the broad sense that the interpretation seems to be as far as the Commission is concerned. But one of the concerns that keeps popping up here in the District is the fact that we do lose industry, we do lose jobs, and I recall other legislation that we have enacted here dealing with representatives of various industries that may locate here in the District of Columbia. They found if they moved across into Virginia or Maryland they had a better advantage. Therefore, they would move out.

Now, I think there is a reasonable medium here that you want to also protect the man who employs in order that you may have an employee, and I think we need to find that middle ground in this legislation. I think the intent of the author is not to go as broadly in its application as the interpretatiton seems to be, so I think this is something we need to clarify before a decision is made. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. FUQUA. You mentioned about checking some of the revenues for the District?

Mr. NELSEN. Yes.

Mr. FUQUA. We are going to have to take a magnifying glass to make that search; real soon, too.

Mrs. NEWMAN. You know, Mr. Chairman, whenever there has been an attempt to increase minimum wage or overtime provisions, industry has, by and large, with very few exceptions, predicted dire consequences that employment would go down and that we would be hurting the very people we are trying to protect. Time after time, even when increases were really substantial and in very low income areas like the South, it has been shown by statistics, and Secretaries of Labor have made these reports from year to year, that these dire consequences really do not happen.

Mr. FUQUA. Mr. Kyros?

Mr. KYROS. We are concerned here with Drivers' Helpers, Loaders, and Mechanics. Isn't that right, primarily? What is the situation again that pertains to contiguous areas of Maryland and Virginia? Are those Drivers' Helpers and Loaders and Mechanics paid the same wages or are they paid lesser wages?

Mrs. NEWMAN. We have no statistics about Maryland and Virginia. Mr. KYROS. Don't you think that is relevant so we won't have a situation develop where any of these trucking industries would change its base of operation?

Mrs. NEWMAN. I think it would be fine if there were a metropolitan area law, but this isn't a metropolitan area law.

This is a law which will apply only to the District of Columbia. We don't know what goes on in these other jurisdictions. Maryland for a long time had no minimum wage law. It now has a minimum wage law. Their minimum wage law is not as good as ours. It may be cheaper to live over there. We don't have those figures, either. Virginia has no minimum wage.

Mr. KYROS. What you just said is very interesting but it doesn't meet the point that I am talking about. I am asking you, isn't it relevant to this discussion and this hearing that we know, if this bill goes through, whether or not it will affect the moving of transportation businesses into Maryland and Virginia?

Mrs. NEWMAN. Yes, I think that would be relevant. How would you find out?

Mr. KYROS. That is your responsibility, not mine. I am asking you the question.

Mrs. NEWMAN. We are basing our judgment on what has happened in the past when we have been told that an increased minimum rate would drive employers out of the District.

Mr. KYROS. I am asking you about truckers. I am not asking general questions about employers.

Mrs. NEWMAN. Based on our past experience, we believe this would not happen.

Mr. KYROS. With truckers?

Mrs. NEWMAN. That is right.

Mr. KYROS. Are you sure? You made studies?

Mrs. NEWMAN. How can I be sure of what will happen? We are basing it on the information we have, Mr. Kyros.

Mr. KYROS. I don't want you to misinterpret my questions. I am well in sympathy with what you testified to this morning, perhaps. Mrs. NEWMAN. Maybe I don't understand you.

Mr. KYROS. I don't think you made any studies of what will happen to truckers, in your generalization as to whether business will move or not move from the District. I simply do not agree. I say businesses are not on their way to staying in the District. I don't think we can use guidelines on the past about the old fights between minimum wage laws. I might sympathize with all those general statements you make but I am worried about the District right now.

It seems to me you should be able to tell us, in your testimony opposing this bill, that, if indeed we approve a bill and include Drivers Helpers, Loaders and Mechanics to maintain the salaries they are now receiving, it will have no effect on truckers moving out to contiguous States. That is my point.

Mrs. NEWMAN. Mr. Kyros, maybe if the Congress, in its wisdom, had seen fit to give us money enough to hire statistical people as we asked both this year and last year, we might have the staff that could do that kind of study. With the staff we have now and the budget that the Congress has given us we can't do that kind of study so we have to base our opinions on what has happened in the past. That is the only criterion we have.

Mr. KYROS. Mrs. Newman, stop making end around runs on my question and just stick to the point. Now, can you get that information and give us any idea whether truckers would actually move if we voted this bill out?

Mrs. NEWMAN. No, sir. I would suggest that you ask the truckers.
Mr. KYROS. Thank you.

Mr. FUQUA. Mr. Gude?

Mr. GUDE. Do you know the relative distribution of these types of trucking firms in suburban Maryland, the District of Columbia and Virginia?

Mrs. NEWMAN. No, sir.

Mr. GUDE. You don't know the past history of these various employers-how many have been located in suburban Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia?

Mrs. NEWMAN. No, sir. Now, that kind of information is available and, if you would like to have it if it would help you at all in your decision, we would be glad to get it for you, but we don't have it. Mr. GUDE. I think it would be very helpful.

Mrs. NEWMAN. All right; we will be very glad to get that information for you, Mr. Gude, to the extent that we can.

Mr. Fuqua. Mrs. Newman, are the truckers paying any type of corporation tax or anything into the District revenue, those that are domiciled here, or maybe Mr. Kneipp would know?

Mr. KNEIPP. I would think, Mr. Chairman, they would pay the corporate franchise tax. I doubt if any of them are unincorporated but if they were they would have to pay the unincorporated business franchise tax, too.

I wonder if I might address myself to Mr. Kyros' question. The problem that you have directed yourself to, sir, has come up before. Years ago Senator Wayne Morse in the other body raised this very same question and he directed that a study be made it might even have been in connection with this 1966 Act, or some earlier Act of that sort to determine which employers of the District had left the District by reason of an increase in some requirement. I believe that it was found that not one had left by reason of an increase in a requirement. They left for other reasons. They left because they needed more space for their operations or they left because it was more convenient, or something, but it was not because of what the Congress had done with respect to raising requirements in laws relating to the District of Columbia, so you see, sir, you can't just direct yourself to the increase in the minimum wage. You have to take into consideration all these other factors, what motivates persons who may leave, and it was found years ago by Senator Morse that it was not the increase in the requirements of the law.

Mr. KYROS. I welcome your remarks and thank you for them, but, of course, this isn't an increase in the minimum wage. This is a rever